They come to my house, or come downstairs with bedhead. Someone makes eggs and someone else puts ketchup and silverware on the table. The dogs get underfoot and Grendel steals a sausage. My younger son asks if he can eat the blackberry pie from yesterday. I say, “Fine, there’s not much left, but do it.”
The breakfast is quiet. Some people read. The little boys eat quickly and run out to the yard. The teenagers make coffee and dose it with sugar and cream.
My sisters and I step onto the Red Gate porch and finish our second cups of tea there. We are very small, next to the ocean, beneath the open sky.
I do not think it will always be this way.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many people helped with this book, in its creation and as it found its way out into the world. Colleen Fellingham, Dominique Cimina, Rebecca Gudelis, Mary McCue, John Adamo, Christine Labov, Barbara Marcus, Adrienne Waintraub, and everyone on my team at Penguin Random House, I am very grateful for your support and hard work. My editor, Beverly Horowitz, that goes for you x 100. Elizabeth Kaplan, Jonathan Ehrlich, and Kassie Evashevski, thank you for your creative and stalwart advocacy. Gratitude to the folks at Allen & Unwin and at Hotkey for their early enthusiasm and support.
Len Jenkin did mystery novel exercises with me in the early stages of the book. Ivy Aukin, Gayle Forman, and Sarah Mlynowski gave insightful early reads, and Gayle gave me the push I needed to begin this project in the first place. Bob was terrific. Hazel Aukin let me borrow and rewrite some of our best conversations. The Minkinnen/Bourne family made raucous sausage jokes and allowed me to write them down. Daniel was excellent and had my back at all times. The cats were useless, but I’m grateful to them anyway.